The Canon PowerShot S95 is a professional compact digital camera, which replaced the Canon PowerShot S90 in August 2010. The Powershot S95 was released at the time, when a stiff competition in the segment of professional compact cameras was developing. If earlier the Canon and Nikon cameras were the only representatives of this class, then many manufacturers have decided to press the two giants and offer their own versions of compact cameras with professional features and manual control.
So, the Canon PowerShot S95, equipped with the 10-megapixel CCD sensor, a lens with optical stabilization and a 3.8x zoom with equivalent focal length of 28-105 mm, as well as the DIGIC 4 processor, was a worthy competitor. To those who are involved in video recording the PowerShot S95 offers the 720p format. In addition the Canon Powershot S95 has video recording modes of 640 × 480 and 320 × 240. But what is more important, the Canon Powershot S95 is equipped with a stereo microphone to accompany your video with a stereo sound. Most cameras both compact and SLR have not had this feature, so the ability to record audio in a stereo mode is an apparent and great advantage of the Canon Powershot S95.
Almost all the Canon cameras, released over the last 10 years, have had the VIVID shooting mode for giving more liveliness and saturation to dim and weak colors. The Powershot S95 features the Super VIVID mode providing even more saturated colors. However, in this mode the white balance settings and some exposure settings are blocked up. So the availability of this mode can be considered, to a large extent, as a marketing maneuver of the Canon Corporation.
The Canon Powershot S95 is an improved version of the PowerShot S90 camera, released in 2009. Compared with the S90, the S95 has a more convenient rear wheel with controls, the improved shutter release button, which was hard to find by touch on the S90, and a number of other improvements.
The design of the Powershot S95 adheres to the same philosophy as the entire series of professional compact cameras, providing a large set of controllers in a compact body. The PowerShot S95 lens is quite fast (f / 2,0-4,9) and allows you to get decent results in low light due to a faster shutter speed and a larger aperture.
The S95 shutter button has been redesigned, so that now it is easy to distinguish it by touch from the dial for selecting shooting modes. In this regard the S90 had problems, and often users were trying to take a picture by clicking on the mode dial, which by touch was just the same as the shutter release button.
The Canon Powershot S95 has two control wheels, one is on the lens unit, the second one is around the rear multicontroller. Both wheels offer rich possibilities for manual control of the camera, and each of them can be programmed for fulfilling different functions. If you wish to change the wheel function, there is a dedicated button on the top panel of the camera – the Ring Func.
The S button, located on the rear panel, can also be programmed for various functions and add some options for the camera manual control. You can assign it one of the 19 possible functions, including ISO, white balance, image quality, bracketing, shooting modes and metering options.
The Canon Powershot S95 does not have a hot shoe for an external flash, but it can be used in conjunction with a wireless module of the HF-DC1 flash with a guide number of 18, and with the ability of mounting on a tripod together with the camera through a special bracket.
The Canon S90 and earlier models featured i-Contrast option, which enabled to shoot scenes with strongly shaded and excessively illuminated areas. The Canon Powershot S95 has a separate function of Auto Dynamic Range Correction for correct displaying of flashes on the photo, as well as the Shadow Correct function for adjusting the shaded areas. Thus, working with the illuminated and shaded areas for the Canon Powershot S95 is more flexible and thorough in comparison with its predecessor the S90. However, what the Canon Powershot S95 makes in the manual mode, the Nikon digital SLR cameras do automatically, without human intervention. From this point of view the Canon Powershot S95 gives way to the Nikon SRLs.
The Canon Powershot S95 has a shooting mode for HDR-pictures (photos with high dynamic range). This mode allows you to shoot scenes with very contrasting areas, for example, any object on the background of the daytime sky or a brightly illuminated building during the night. Pictures look very distinctive and expressive, and the camera makes it easy and fast. You need only to select an HDR scene mode, pull the trigger and the S95 captures a series of three images with different exposure settings, makes the necessary calculations, and saves the result.
The PowerShot S95 battery life is enough for about 200 shots. Unfortunately, the battery monitoring system is not very correct, as it shows a full charge almost to the point when only 2 or 3 shots are left to be shot.
The Canon Powershot S95 perfectly copes with shooting in low light, has excellent color reproduction, a large number of controllers of direct access. All these are big pluses of the camera. The control system is simple and convenient. In general, a set of features and functions is impressive.
